Assembly speaker receives Newburgh briefings

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie visited Newburgh on Aug. 2 with Asemblyman Jonathan Jacobson whose 104th District includes Newburgh. They received briefings on a project taking shape for a 35-acre city park and the activities of the Newburgh Urban Food and Farm Initiative (NUFFI).

Heastie and Jacobson visited with Executive Director Virginia Kasinki of the NUFFI. The group advises community groups and individuals on urban gardens and provides free or low-cost produce to residents. NUFFI received a $10,000 allocation in the state budget that was put there by Heastie’s Assembly Majority.

The group also operates the Downing Park Urban Farm (DPUF), where community members can take part in educational programs and participate in planting, growing and harvesting food that is donated to local food banks or sold at the Newburgh Farmers Market. DPUF reported that during Covid in 2020 it grew approximately 4,500 pounds of food at the farm and donated that food to 15 different programs in Newburgh.

“There is something special about neighbors helping neighbors, and the farm seeks to do that each and every day by providing produce to our neighbors that need it the most,” Jacobson said about NUFFI and the Downing Park farm.

Heastie and Jacobson also were briefed on a more solemn project being developed for Downing Park. The project is for the Newburgh African American Burial Ground, which will provide a permanent resting place for the remains of African Americans that were removed from an old burial ground.

In 2008, remains of men, women and children were discovered by construction workers at the City of Newburgh Courthouse located at the corner of Broadway and Route 9W. The city courthouse previously was the Broadway School that was built in 1908 on a piece of land that once was a burial ground for African Americans.

When the Broadway School originally was built, excavations uncovered human remains. Newspaper reports at the time indicated that the remains were to be relocated to two sites: the Alms House burial ground located at Snake Hill on city-owned property, and at Woodlawn Cemetery on Union Avenue, a private facility. It is unknown how many individuals were actually moved, and how many were left in the existing burial ground at the Broadway School location.

During the 2008 courthouse renovation project, excavations uncovered skeletal human remains from several individuals. These remains were turned over to the Orange County Medical Examiner’s office, which determined that they came from a historic cemetery.

A number of citizens have worked to ensure that the remains will be appropriately reinterred in a suitable location. After many meetings and study, the city and the citizens group agreed that a burial ground should be created in an area near the top of Downing Park that has sweeping Hudson River views. City officials took Heastie and Jacobson on a tour of the area and discussed plans for creating the burial ground.